Hi Mark,
thanks for the update on the situation. I personally very much
welcome the effort to make the HTTP/1.1 spec a better HTTP/1.1 spec.
A better spec insofar as to bring the specification and reality even
closer together, making it easier to understand, making it easier to
do compliant, interoperable implementations. It could also help to
stabilize the base that other protocols like APP stand on.
This can only be a success however if the scope stays as you describe
it. Any attempt to go beyond that will awaken tidal forces beyond
human imagination or "open the flood gates" as Roy termed it.
I'm game to contribute what experience I have and some interop test/
coding sounds appealing to me as well.
Cheers,
Stefan
Am 18.10.2006 um 17:29 schrieb Mark Nottingham:
>
> After the Bar Bof (summary: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/
> ietf-http-wg/2006JulSep/0010.html>), I've been talking to a lot of
> people about the prospect of revising RFC2616.
>
> Most everyone I've talked to agrees on a few things;
> * Focus on errata and clarifications
> * Don't introduce a new version of HTTP
> * Don't break compatibility (a prerequisite for an unchanged
> version)
> * Skew towards implementation experience
> * If it's clearly uncontroversial, deprecate unused/non-
> interoperable features
> * If in doubt, don't change it (do no harm)
> * Don't try to make it perfect, just better
>
> I've also seen a fair amount of private interest in working along
> these lines; not only from people using HTTP for machine-to-machine
> communication (e.g., Atom, AJAX) but also from traditional browser
> and server vendors.
>
> The question now is whether that interest will become public and
> translate into activity. Jim Gettys' efforts at 2616bis didn't gain
> traction because he didn't feel that there was an appropriate pool
> of reviewers, and similarly we're concerned that while a lot of
> people might want to see this work done, we're less sure that
> enough people will actually do the work.
>
> To help find out, a few things have been happening;
> * Yves Lafon and Julian Reschke have published an I-D that re-
> states RFC2616 using xml2rfc, so that people can verify it's a
> faithful transcription. Soon, they'll publish an -01 that
> incorporates the errata that Scott has captured in <http://purl.org/
> NET/http-errata> (which didn't require additional discussion).
> * I'm working on an issues list that captures all of the
> problems that have popped up on the list, so that we can track
> proposed errata and clarifications. Expect to see the first
> revision of that soon.
>
> We also discussed having a BoF in San Diego with the ADs, but
> decided that there hadn't yet been enough activity to make it
> successful. We're hoping that having a draft and an issues list
> available will generate discussion that will demonstrate the
> community's interest.
>
> Further down the road, we'll need to figure out if, when and how a
> WG should be (re-)formed. There's also the opportunity to do
> interop work, and perhaps even a test suite (something that I've
> heard a few people express interest in), if enough people are
> willing to do it.
>
> This is where we're at now; the next steps are to get the issues
> list out and start discussion, so as to give us information about
> the level of interest and commitment in moving forward. If you have
> concerns about the scope or path forward, please bring them up to
> the list; likewise, if you're willing to help, we'd love to hear
> about it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham http://www.mnot.net/
>
>